Happy New Year to all our jelly friends.
2010 is the start of a new decade and also will see a different year for jelly. We will no longer have a town centre home from 1 March and sadly that means that some of the services we provide will no longer be available until we find a new home.
We will still be working to develop the organisation, work with other Reading art groups and individuals and deliver town centre exhibitions and events. We want to thank you for your support over the past 16 years and look forward to it continuing. Watch this space for details of what we are up to – we have a lot planned.
In the meantime, below is a letter sent to the lead arts officers and councilors at the beginning of December 09, asking what was their vision for the future of Reading, please feel free to leave a comment here if you have anything you would like to add. There have been no responses to this email yet.
. . . . . . . . .
Dear All
This is an end-of-year email to update you on where things currently stand regarding the re-homing Jelly and Open for Art.
Re-homing Jelly
Unfortunately, despite all our considerable efforts, as a result of the enforced departure from the space we have been utilising at The Old Town Hall there is no home for Jelly to go to, nor the other organisations that currently work with Jelly in the space – the Voice Studio, hang-on, arjeea21 and The Outcasts. This means that Jelly will no longer be able to offer the current busy and diverse programme of activities in one town centre location, including popular workshops for children and adults and support to up-and-coming young artists.
Since we were given the news in August that we would have to leave, I have been continually looking for a place to re-house Jelly, the work we do and the other organisations we work with. We have a creative community who all value the space and can grow and deliver from it.
The biggest problem we face is finding appropriate space that is affordable, combined with the uncertainty of funding which means that it is difficult for us to be able to plan for the future and work out exactly what programme we can deliver.
The value of what Jelly delivers is undoubtedly more than any oversimplified perception as solely a provider of art workshops. Rather, we have received recognition nationally and internationally, with our heart and soul still embedded in Reading. Jelly is also:
• helping other organisations grow
• running networks (both in the real world and online)
• creating and developing a community through its extensive mailing list of artists and delivering artists’ training
• working with TVU and the University of Reading
• developing new initiatives across the town.
Jelly is passionate about the Arts. We believe that a town with the status and confidence of Reading must have, and actively support, a creative community as part of its soul. However the future for Jelly without a central hub is destabalising, and the outlook for us alongside other vulnerable arts organisations in this town is bleak.
This does not bode well for arts and culture in a town like ours. We are staring in the face a future with no artists’ studios, when the Barracks eventually go, with the loss of the Jelly space no central focus, and no affordable space for artists/groups to emerge and meet. In spite of this feeling of uncertainty, should we just stop now?
Open for Art
In the face of this Jelly has been working on. We have recently collaborated with Reading UK CIC to create Open for Art. You may have already have heard about this via the e-news and hang-on mailing, but as a reminder:
Open for Art is a partnership project between jelly and Reading UK CIC, utilising Reading’s empty shop windows with art from Reading based artists. This follows a successful pilot project in June 2009 creating pop-up galleries in Reading. Working with the landlords and agents of Reading we will be using temporary spaces, creating a visual profile for the arts and showing Reading’s individuality as a town
• There are three more units in the pipeline
• The front window of Friars Walk will be housing final-year student work from the University of Reading Fine Art department
• Higgs Printers shop (as was) on Station Hill will house a piece by a current Open Hand Open Space Studio Member
• Suntan Clinic (as was) on Butter Market will hopefully have work in from January 2010 by artists from Reading Guild of Artists to coincide with their exhibition at the Museum.
• I have also been talking to Sony about showing the films commissioned by the Reading Experimental Film Festival on a loop, they are saying maybe after Christmas.
We have been getting a great response from people and below is a taster of the email feedback I have had received recently.
My question for you all is what is the future for the arts in Reading? And who will provide active support? We need to open up the debate about how arts organisations can emerge and thrive, and how the council and others can support them to enable them to develop and help build Reading’s reputation as a cultural, creative, artistic place.
I sincerely hope that we can begin the new year with renewed vigour, and find ways to work together to make this happen.
. . . . . . . . .
Please feel free to leave your viewpoint in the comments below
The jelly 
This is heartbreaking, actually. I think your letter is excellent, and I think that your points specifically about the need for Art to give a town soul are salient and true.
I am really sorry that you have to leave the Town Hall and I wonder who we can petition about this… there must be someone in the council who can see the value of what Jelly adds to this place?
Devastated that jelly will have no home – Reading needs jelly!! No home for outcasts and no more art workshops – unthinkable. There’s nothing like it in the county.
I am not from Reading but I think your letter sums up issues that Arts based organisations and projects are dealing with throughout the country. As the previous comment states it is heartbreaking that this can be allowed to happen. We are currently fighting in our town to prevent our town centre library from being shut down for at least three years and no alternative being offered. The council just don’t want to know.
I sincerely hope you can find a new home for Jelly in Reading.
thank you for your comment, we know we are not alone and are aware of other regional organisations that are suffering a similar fate ~ I am grateful for all the comments here as I know there is more value in art, creativity and the space to become involved/ soak in from the side lines. Sometimes the essence of a place or the people who make it so get swallowed up. The demise of a library is a significant and troubling event which is even made harder by this constant idea that people do not need this or that – have they asked those people? Decisions are made in places and often there is no point for discussion or room for negotiation.
I sincerely hope too that you win your battle, remember there have been great campaigns that have survived – the South Bank, Coin Street is a great example.
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The fact that Jelly will have no home is so sad. It has been such an important place in Reading for so many people at all different levels. It seems such a waste of all the talent, effort and time that has gone in to setting it up and running it. Outrageous that there has been no response at all.
This is a very sad state of affairs indeed. I’ve lived in Reading for 18 years and one of the draws for me has been the opening of Jelly leg’d Chicken in the Oracle development – where it was a truly vibrant oasis for families, creative and professional artists!
Jelly has made such a welcome contribution to Reading’s community arts ever since and it’s an absolute credit to yourself and other participants that you’ve continued to provide Reading with this creative outlet despite being already downsized to premises in the Town Hall. It saddens me greatly that the decision seem intent on sacrificing yet more of the very “soul” of this town at a time when more and more people are being drawn to the arts for health, therapy and professional development. Gordon Brown told Andrew Marr on his show this Sunday that the creative arts industry was one of the growth areas he envisaged as pulling this country out of recession so come on Reading Borough Council – let’s get a dialogue going here and show some ingenuity, Jelly can surely be saved.
Its a crazy world where at a time that there are many empty shops, a home cannot be found for such a worthwhile project.
My sister is Suzanne Stallard, founder of the Jelly which arrived in Reading 16 years ago out of the vision and passion of one gal straight out of Uni! I remember the day she opened just behind John Lewis, in a run-down but very characterful building, but, by gosh, did she ever shine a whole new light from that space and onto the rest of Reading. Even though she opened on a cold, wintery night, it was as though Spring had arrived, the vibrancy and excitement about the gallery and Reading becoming a centre for Arts and Culture was just stunning. Not only that, but those early days at the Jelly were all about forging through with a whole new way for artists to follow their dreams, creating a co-operative art space where artists could exhibit and sell work without shouldering extortionate fee’s in return for manning the gallery and having studio space too … what a vision and what a dream that was realised all those years ago, keeping artists local and networked and opening up the communities of Reading to an accessible and friendly arts space. From there, she has moved from building to building as and when needed, forever flexible and forever creating excitement and enthusiasm about the potential of the next. I couldn’t even begin to try and tell you how far her visions have reached and how she has touched and inspired others, she’s just so hard to keep up with (!!!). I couldn’t even begin to list the new initiatives and activities she undertakes to pump awareness, opportunities and creativity through all communities. Or even the years, hours, day and minutes that have been poured into this vibrant organisation. I am saddened to feel that one visionary woman who has held steadfast for 16 years for Reading and worked tirelessly could be let down by so many in our local council, but feel lightened by the fact that surely you can hear the voices and feel and see what a tremendous loss this will be if Jelly does not have a home. Suzanne Stallard holds the key and I’d most sincerely encourage you to take your opportunity with Suzanne now to find a new way to move forwards, and most importantly, before someone else seizes the key and the opportunity.
This is really sad news! I really like Jelly and have made it along to a number of your events. The peephole exhibition in the old Long Tall Sally shop is a really creative and interesting use of space. Reading has really taken a hit on a cultural level in the last few years — Womad, countless pub closures, the Town Hall film club and now Jelly! Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
Reading more than most towns needs the wonderful resource that is Jelly.
Jelly has been a continual source of inspiration and support to the arts and artists, the void that a loss of Jelly would leave in the town is huge for those interested in visual arts. The mould that Suzanne has tirelessly built and continually reinvented is an admirable and genuinely valuable one to everyone involved or interested in art in our town, what can fill this positively charged space but jelly.
With a town centre so dominated by ubiquitous commercial hegemony of chain-stores, chain-pubs and restaurants, it is merely logical and intelligent to support and encourage what UNIQUE INDEPENDENT CULTURAL RESOURCES we do have left. Jelly is a cultural heart for arts, a reason to travel into a centre with an ever decreasing draw. Reading needs Arts and Jelly is best placed to fill this need.
I dearly hope there is a vision for the future Arts and culture in Reading, if that alleged vision were to overlook Jelly then it would be a sadly myopic one at best.
This is very sad news indeed. The Jelly is the backbone that holds a number of Reading-based arts initiates together (and up!). I rely on the Jelly emails to keep up with the events happening in Reading. It’s depressing that a place as big as Reading won’t have a home for the hub of its arts scene. Hopefully the council will respond to your excellent letter in a meaningful way – I hope they can see it’s important for Reading’s national profile. Does Reading council really want Reading’s numerous artists to rely on Bracknell, Slough, and other councils? Surely there’s some support for a home for the jelly, considering how important it is to the Reading arts scene?
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments on this page.
Without these organisations Reading will suffer considerably on so many levels.
I don’t think the council realise the network and community that are linked through and supported by the jelly.
Is there some way for us to actively demonstrate how large a community it is and what a loss this will be?
maybe with our collective creative thinking hats on we could muster up some noise.
I recently moved away from Reading after 11 years and throughout that time the Jelly was one of the more interesting places to visit in the town centre.
I’ve bee to exhibitions there, shopped for interesting presents and generally been supported and enthused by the lovely staff. My daughter was introduced to some exciting ideas and made new friends through various birthday parties and workshops.
It beggars belief that with 2 Higher Education institutions within the town offering Fine Art among their courses, Reading Borough Council is prepared to let this happen. With the ending of Gallery 21 as a possible venue for exhibitions, and now the Jelly with no home, you just have to be left with the impression that Reading doesn’t care if it’s renowned only for shopping and drunkenness.
The Jelly opened its doors to me two years ago when I joined the knitting artists the Outcasts who meet there on Wednesdays. I still remember my first evening there when I met Suzanne Stallard who welcomed me in a room which was literally made by local people. I looked around and saw the tangible traces of people coming together, making things, inspiring each other, spending time with like-minded souls, children forging creatures out of their dreams, pieces of knitting, cakes baked and shared, and cups of tea served to comfort on rainy days. I thought Reading did not have much to give me in terms of art and creativity but I knew that I was wrong the moment I became part of the inspiring place that is the Jelly. Suzanne is not just a brilliant thinker, she’s a formidable doer. Her amazing networking skills have helped local artists and crafters discovering each other and organising happenings and exhibitions. Closing the Jelly will not only be a personal loss. It will bear a big impact on Reading where there is already a penury of places designed to enrich people’s lives and contribute to the local community. A town cannot just offer a trail of chain shops, restaurants and other money-making venues for the local council if it wants to remain alive and convince people to stay instead of moving on after they’ve enjoyed a quick ride in this mock entertainment park model that Reading seems to be heading towards.
I can’t believe I am reading this, I grew up in Reading, was inspired by jelly and that’s what made me become the artist I am today.
My parents took me to the first jelly, I saw a man make a mermaid out of sand bigger than I could imagine. Then as I got older I went to art classes and they inspired me to go to art school and now here I am a practising artist with an ambition to exhibit in jelly, the place that started it all. I am truly saddened by this. I admire the inspiration of Suzanne Stallard to have started this in my home town. I am so proud that jelly is in Reading, please don’t let it go away.
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Suzanne, this is a sure sign of the times – the System is on another waveband – and it is not ours.
I am at a loss at the moment…. but will keep my thinking hat on. Meantime, I send my heartfelt best wishes and love to you, Jelly and all the wonderful creative bods and supporters I have met along the way in and around Reading.
THREE CHEERS FOR THE JELLY X X X
What does Jelly mean to me and my family?
The first sequin glued by my daughter (when she was 2 yrs old) – the first monster mask lovingly designed and built my son (when he was 4 yrs old) a welcome introduction to Reading’s vibrant and talented art scene (my husband -then early 30’s and a newcomer to Reading) Me – my first dropped stitch and INSPIRATION (now aged 40 something!)
This is very sad news indeed. Suzanne you’ve done a fab job and still do! It’s a shame that RBC don’t have any interest in supporting artists or galleries, Reading needs some culture.
Do you think is will be discussed at the arts forum meeting in feb? I can’t imagine how you’re feeling after all the years of hard work you’ve done, i hope this isn’t the end and that you do find somewhere else to do your good work from.
I’m very sorry to hear this news – Jelly has been amazing over the years. I can remember when i first moved to Reading 11 years ago how happy I felt to find a piece of real Reading – something that isn’t on every high st in England. Over the years i have watched it move from place to place, and my kids have come back delighted with various papier mache masks and other goodies that they have made. More recently Jelly offered a glimmer of hope to my girlfriend who was deciding whether or not to move to Reading and bemoaning the lack of an arts scene.
I don’t believe this will be the end of Jelly – my hope is that an alternative venue will emerge (such as the empty office by JL and St Mary’s) – there are enough empty buildings around… Viva Jelly!
The Jelly has a very special place in my heart. I have met some wonderful friends through the Jelly by taking part in some of the Jelly workshops and groups such as The Outcasts. I can’t quite believe that Jelly won’t have a home from March. Sad times.
jelly represents the best of what can happen when creative people are prepared to collaborate. After years of working in Theatre, Opera, Education and the music business it has been very exciting to have a visual arts organisation open their doors to us. When we work together, really anything is possible, but we do need a meeting place.
How can Reading not value this tremendous resource?
“Gosh….Hope jelly is moving on to a larger and better mould
xx
Why am I even saying that of course you’ll have some plan for creative genious domination.
xx”
I am not a resident of Reading but had the privilege of being involved with a family art day run by Jelly last summer. I had never been to Reading before, and based on comments from many people, was expecting it to be a dull, uninspiring place.
Thanks to Suzanne and her phenomenal passion and energy, and to the exciting buzz that Jelly generates I left wondering how so many people could be so wrong about a place.
Passers by were engaged by what was on offer, people were connecting, the streets were alive and buzzing. I saw children proudly showing their parents their pictures displayed in the town centre.
I believed that Reading Council had vision and a real desire to make Reading something special. How wrong could I have been?
How disappointing to discover that yet another council is incapable of seeing what people really need to feel truly alive and connected with their community. Communities need a heart and soul to thrive and prosper and it seems to me that Suzanne and Jelly have been creating just that.
Perhaps more worrying is that Reading Council don’t even seem to have the vision to see what has been gifted to them by one woman and her vision and total commitment for the past 16 years. If Jelly loses it’s town centre location I can’t see any reason to bother to travel to Reading … and I’ll certainly stop challenging those people who dismiss Reading as just another bland high street.
Believe me JELLY is the Heart of Art in Reading not only for the PEOPLE of Reading but for anyone from anywhere, no matter colour, race or creed. Just like the body, take away that Heart & all the Arteries, Veins & Organs no longer LIVE & GROW. Its not only Reading that will die from the loss of Jelly, but all those far & wide places, schools & population, the non-artists, the always renewing fresh Art, a Home for those shunned, famous or otherwise, that Jelly has & always will inspire. The chance of the Children, Mothers, Fathers, Grandparents, Family & Friends to explore & enjoy the freedom of Art expression no matter their age or ability. Never forgetting the enjoyment provided for those with whatever disability. Jelly has & hopefully always will be a LIVING example of people sharing & caring for all, just how the soul of a community should live to flourish & keep moving forward. If Jelly is not supported by those who can & have the power to help then they must bow their heads in SHAME. It will such a great sad loss, never the like ever to be witnessed again. 16 YEARS, of community inspiration, so many people from far & wide becoming lifelong friends around the World, compare this to a New born baby growing into the beginning of adulthood. PLEASE SAVE THE JELLY, you know who you are. Thank You.
For years I have been surprised that Suzanne has not been tempted away by head-hunters who see her real value in providing for needs that many people do not understand that they have yet. Although to many people familiar with the town centre the original Jelly Gallery has all but disappeared, there is much more bubbling away beneath the surface. The jelly started in the last recession because it could, and it shouldn’t be allowed to end during this one.
This is not just about the jelly or the gallery though. Suzanne is an entrepreneur who deals in creative profit rather than financial gain, and has worked tirelessly and endlessly to feed her creative ambition for her home town and artists from here and all over the UK.
She is a Dee Park Estate girl who started with a vision for place and art, hoping to replicate what she saw happening in Bristol in the 80s. She has never tried to do this solely for herself, beyond wanting to live and work in an environment which celebrates, harbours and nurtures creativity. Her quirky and energetic approach to vision and business, though highly valuable has always been undervalued, and has probably never been appropriately sold, bought or paid for. I now wonder how this can be sustainable for her and for the town. Natasha has a point. If Reading doesn’t make use of her talents somebody else will.
In my role as course leader for the former Community Art Degree course originally at Berkshire College of Art and Design, then Reading College and currently TVU, I encountered people who have relocated to Reading believing that the town is an active cultural hub precisely because of organisations such as the Jelly.
For others, the reputation of Reading as a shopping centre by day and a and drinking centre by night holds fast. During a recent conversation with an artist newly arrived in Reading from Brighton, it became obvious that the impressive and over-sized creative community in Brighton still holds a poor impression of Reading, and this is something that none of us as artists or residents want to perpetuate.
Suzanne’s sense of loyalty to, and pride in the town which has grown up around the former Jelly gallery sites is admirable but also puzzling. Perhaps Reading is becoming so big that it is trampling on the smaller organisations without noticing. Or is it so near to London to have overlooked the value that creative identity from independent organisations brings?
Perhaps when the visible jelly gallery and artists’ studios disappeared, the promises of re-emergence placated those of us who waited patiently for its resurrection and the silence was misinterpreted as a lack of need, enthusiasm or desire for such a space and organisation. Perhaps, after having had the colourful flowers pruned off , the roots – invisible and underground, threatened with drought – have been forgotten or not considered worthy of preservation.
Let’s hope that the sound of the artistic community makes conservation a more viable option than losing this valuable resource for ever.
Dear all
Thank you so much for your thoughts and words above – comment is, as they say, free and on this blog all comments that have been submitted have been approved without change. We appreciate all feedback both positive and critique, so thank you and please feel free to continue.
We would just like to say that jelly will stay in some form, that form will be continuing the pop-up galleries/ open for art (in partnership with Reading UK CIC) delivery of art events such as Childrens Festival; Town Centre Day and at the artists networks and meets.
This will be a different kind of jelly but that is how we have always been, transitional, fluid, adapting and we just hope that we can save some of the organisations and groups that we have brought along with us. Jelly isn’t just about an organisation, it is as some have pointed out above much more than that as it is a key to so many other art groups and individuals. Neither are the problems that are facing jelly finding a home just a local issue but is currently a problem facing many not for profit arts organisations across the UK so even though the murmurs are about the value of art it may take a time to entrench that into thinking of the decision makers.
What we’d really like is knowing that the groups who work with us have somewhere to meet, that as a town there is a vision we are all aiming for and that we can work together to create it.
That is so very sad. You’d think that with all the money that has been ploughed into expanding Reading’s shopping centres over the last few years that there would be something in the pot for such a worthy and valued institution as jelly. I am really hoping that a new venue can be found so that jelly’s creative ventures can continue and expand!
My daughter has had three birthday parties at jelly, which means that three times we have had a dozen or so families take the train up to Reading from Newbury. They have all been delighted with jelly, with the quality of activities for their children and by the fact that its central location allowed them to take the train and to spend a couple of hours exploring the heart of Reading. Most were pleasantly surprised – some of them stayed all day!
Jelly is one of the organisations Reading can rightly be very proud of and I find it hard to believe that RBC don’t understand this, especially in the context of its cultural strategy and bid to become a city of culture. Jelly at the town hall is part of its cultural heart and a fantastic flagship for the town. My daughter is now seven, determined to be an artist when she grows up, and regards Suzanne Stallard as her inspiration and role model. Where will there ever be another jelly?
our family is new to the jelly but it has really quickly become a major favourite – we’ll be lost without it. really hope rbc come to their senses and realise what a gem the jelly is. thanks for everthing suzanne and jo.
I am really sad, finding jelly gave me hope for moving back to reading that I could be involved in an art community.
Sad news
Sorry to all those volunteers that made jelly work;-(
fingers crossed a new space may happen
I still can’t take it in! My daughters are really really upset, they love the workshops. The Jelly has an atmosphere of creativity that just does not come any where else in Reading. Sterile, temporary rooms in other venues, where you worry about paint and PVA touching the walls and office furniture are dreaded by this mum. They certainly don’t enthuse my children like the Jelly does, however great the activity. The Jelly you can relax in as a family and ENJOY being creative. When I think about how the room has changed from a dumping ground to such an inspiring space it makes feel quite angry that all that is to be just swept aside for – well what? My girls and I just hope that there are enlightened landlords out there – I’m horrified the council isn’t one of them.
I moved to Reading just over three years ago for work and my initial reaction was hate. I hated Reading, I saw it as a soulless, heartless hymn to shopping and drinking. I wanted to get out as fast as I possibly could. I had lived in cities and even a village where I felt at home because the creative arts were taken seriously. It wasn’t that there was always council sponsored activities going on, but there were many people around creating things. Workshops, events, exhibitions, art, writing, singing, there were creative people doing creative things. There was culture.
Reading as a place just didn’t seem to have any of those things. Then I found Jelly. I went to a meeting of the Outcasts and although their art isn’t my chosen media I felt at home. There were people creating things in Reading. There was hope to living here.
When people who don’t live here ask what on earth I see in Reading, Jelly is one of things that I use as a reason. ‘It may not look like a cultural home on the surface, but there are people creating constantly and working to make a cultural community. It has the potential to become amazing.’ I would explain about Jelly and how it’s position in the Town Hall showed committment to this kind of thing.
Jelly to me is Reading. Suzanne Stallard loves Reading and without meeting her I would not have stayed here. She told me about what was going on and where to go, I found the gems of Reading faster because I had contact with Jelly. I would like to say thank you for that. I would also like to offer my support for any campaign to save Jelly and to save the arts in Reading. If you need me to do anything, I’m here.
Now Jelly is being forced out and I wonder what the future of Reading is. I also selfishly wonder what my future in Reading is. I don’t hate it anymore and some parts of it I love but the lack of culture in this town is the main reason I would move. The hope I felt when I found Jelly is harder to hold on to now.
I am very confused and depressed by this council decision what are they choosing to use this space for now? How can they be so short sighted and underestimate the importance of arts within our community. My kids woke up today without prompting saying it’s the last day of the Jelly today. Surely this engagement and love is priceless.
I’ve had my head buried in the sand and can’t quite believe that Jelly has lost it’s home. It doesn’t seem real because it doesn’t make sense. I just want to reiterate what everyone else has said. I never felt at home in Reading until I discovered the vibrant Jelly community. I’m very grateful to all the fantastic people I’ve met there.
Nice to see so many people and happy children celebrating the Jelly and Suzanne once more! It will always remain a magical place with amazing people and formidable makers.
I lived in Reading for 7 years and it was when I started the Community Art course at the college on kings road that I first discovered the ‘Jelly’ and Suzanne. The place was always a source of inspiration for me and it continued to be long after I moved away from Reading 9 years go. I came to Reading a few months ago to look for ‘Jelly’ in the Oracle and was dismayed to find it gone! I have been wondering what happened and just ‘found’ a link on google. Im SO glad to see you are still around Suzanne! Dont be discouraged by all the stuff that is going on – it is a sign of the times and I am sure that your positivity and creative energy will find solution somehow to secure a property once more. I know this link is out of date but if you read this Suzanne – alot of people are tuned into your frequency DONT GIVE UP!! Lots of love from South Wales
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